IF YOU DON’T LIKE GARDENS THIS IS NOT FOR YOU

When I wrote about the Cassia fistula, whose flowers are largely hidden by a whopping great palm, I posted one picture of the flowers and buds.

(It’s over on the sidebar with the Flickr photos.) I tried to take a good picture when more buds opened, but that garden has a border of BIG rocks. Big, uneven rocks. I couldn’t balance on the rocks AND hold the camera steady.

But look at this! Small wonder its common name is “Golden Showers.”

And because gardens are directly related to weather…

We see cumulus clouds piling up every day…and then dissipating. Those suckers have the potential to drench half the planet so where do they go? They sure as shootin’ don’t unload their burden on this parched patch! Oh, wait! I know where it went…Brisbane was hammered again a couple of days ago. They haven’t had such storms in years.

Our turn is coming, according to the “gloomies.” Those wizened old crones who begin sentences with “back in the old days…” or “when I was a kid…” and then spout the most improbable nonsense say that we’ll be “getting lotsa cyclones” this year. For the most part, this sort of prediction comes under the heading of old wives’/men’s tales.

But we’re hearing similar prognostications from the boffins at the Bureau of Meteorology. Maybe we should take heed?

Very well, says Dinah, putting the window cleaning gear back in the cupboard. No point having sparkling glass if it’s going to be mud-splattered,right? Back to the garden. Much more fun!

A ruff, courtesy of a caterpillar. I know it was a caterpillar because I caught the little bug-ger in the act. Did I rush for a can of DDT? No! We practise manual eradication here so I picked off the perpetrator and tossed it to a bird. A few bug holes didn’t diminish “Apricot Nectar’s” delicious scent.

I think I’m going to give up on roses now. For the first 2 years here I resisted. This is not an easy thing for someone who had over 80 roses in her previous garden!

These both performed so well for me before that I figured I’d get at least two good seasons. But the flood in February meant they had wet fet for longer than even these toughies can cope with. All the same, I was more than a little surprised to find “Iceberg” dead as a doornail while “Madame Isaac Perreire” put out new shoots.Barbara Lea Taylor calls this the “ultimate hat rose.”

Mme.Isaac is planted only 3 metres from Iceberg!! No flowers this year, but I’ve kept her trimmed and, weather permitting, next Spring she will be pickably gorgeous again. (And, yes, pickably is a word. Ask any gardener!)

Oh! That wisteria is flowering again!I have only to approach with secateurs and it goes into a flowering frenzy. Stupi Wonderful thing!

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A New Zealander, currently living in tropical Queensland,Australia (with 2 cats and one Main Man).Old enough to remember George VI, white tennis balls and life-before-television.You want more? Read the blog!